


How It Ends

by tatou



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, this is a goodbye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:25:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatou/pseuds/tatou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gets on a bus and Jack runs after it, shouting and shoving people out of his way on the pavement until he finally stops, and was he ever really running at all or did Aster only imagine it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Ends

**Author's Note:**

> For those who didn't see the news on my blog, I'm going on a hiatus. I don't know how long for, but I will try my best to keep fic updates (Caught and Deliverance) exempt from it because I am determined to finish at least one of them by August.

He leaves because he wants to, and because he knows it is safer that way.

 

It tears a hole in him larger than his fist, scrapes away at the insides of his heart and leaves him raw, bleeding and hunched slovenly against the greasy bus window, pulling pieces of his phone apart with the blunts of his nails.

 

Aster has always been like this. Always felt the need to have, to own and keep. He has never seen greed as a bad thing; why should he? He suffers from it, as his parents said once, but that does not mean he is unhappy. He does not always see it as wrong, but there are those times where clarity strikes and he knows, he _knows_ that there is something in him not working the way it should, knows that there is something wrong with him and that to be inflicting his own torments on another is cruel.

 

But that was before, and he _is_ unhappy now. So maybe they'd been right all along.

 

He leaves Jack because it is healthier that way.

 

One day, it is just too much to bear. Aster goes into their room and throws his clothes into his duffel bag, knows that if he wants to do this right then he must leave what he cannot take with him. If he comes back for it, he'll never leave again. So he puts what he can fit into the bag as Jack pulls at his arms and makes noises, sounds he can't hear because he has to shut himself off, because he must become immune to what he is so desperately unwilling to leave. He loves him still, but he has let this all go too far and if Aster does not leave now he will hate himself for the rest of his life. Each step away from Jack stabs at his lungs until he feels out of breath and weak, pathetic.

 

It's hard, of course, impossibly hard to leave the boy. Partially because that selfishness is still there in him, burning furious and fast. He wants Jack, loves him and will til the day he dies, but the other things he feels for Jack aren't remotely healthy. They've spoken of these things before; Jack has time and time again told Aster that he doesn't mind, he is okay with it and they can work things out. And that was all fine, relieved some of Aster's worry, but then what about him? Can he still go on this way? Does it make him any less disgusted with himself?

 

It doesn't.

 

He has to force his way out of the apartment, push Jack timidly off of him because he can't bear to use force, afraid that the harder he holds him the faster his resolve will break. He gets on a bus and Jack runs after it, shouting and shoving people out of his way on the pavement until he finally stops, and was he ever really running at all or did Aster only imagine it?

 

He has to shut off his phone because it will not stop buzzing with missed calls. Inside him, his heart buzzes in response, seeking out the thing that made it feel close to whole.

 

Aster feels things, vividly. Half the time he does not know where the emotions come from, but they come to knot and clog his throat at the oddest of times so that he will never know when to predict them. He cannot know when or what precisely it is that triggers this. One moment he is smiling and calm and the next there is that bottomless pit opening inside him again, where the happiness drops down to places he can't reach and he is left with that stinging emptiness in his eyes. This is just the way it is, and has been since he was young.

 

It makes him hate Jack.

 

It makes (made, now) him rougher when they hug, kiss, make love, and it is not even that anymore because when they are pressed together on his bed he no longer feels it as love. All he feels is empty, because this is not close enough and all he wants is for the emptiness in him to go away. He wants to feel happy with his love for Jack, with what he has. He doesn't want to feel anxiety anymore, doesn't want to feel that wild, irrational jealousy. He wants, he wants, he wants.

 

He is afraid of these thoughts, so he leaves.

 


End file.
